Ruth has spent 20 years using design as a problem solving lens to make sense of societal dissonance by researching human needs. She works across sectors on long-term systems change projects that deconstruct structural and institutional barriers and fundamentally shift the way people believe what’s possible. Ruth is a visionary thinker,  creative problem-solver,  operational implementer and collaborative leader.

Previously, Ruth worked with Annie Liebovitz & Bruce Mau Design. She has a BA in Fine Art & Indigenous Studies from McMaster, a Master’s degree in Landscape Architecture from the Harvard Graduate School of Design and is a certified Forest Therapy Guide. She’s taught at the Universities of Toronto, and Waterloo, the Chang School, OCADU and Harvard. Her projects have been featured in the Globe & Mail, Toronto Star, McGill Reporter, MIT news, and extolled by the White House (during the Obama administration).

Ruth’s most recent project was the Climate Action Lab, Powered by Let’s Talk Science. A unique participatory ethnographic research project in collaboration with 100 + high school and university students across Canada to investigate what teens need to participate in climate action.

Ruth is a qualitative researcher who led a large scale ethnographic research project to understand climate action from the perspective of teens across Canada.